frumiousb

When Thomas began to teach the people and explained to them the twelve degrees of virtue. The first degree is to believe in a God one in essence and trine in persons. The apostle showed them by means of tangible examples how three persons can be in one essence, and said: “Man's wisdom is one, yet it is composed of understanding, memory, and reason. Reason is the power by which you discover what you have not yet learned; memory enables you to retain what you have learned; understanding allows you to comprehend what is shown or taught to you. The vine, too, is made up of three elements, wood, leaves and fruit, and yet they all form one vine. One head comprises four senses-- sight, taste, hearing and smell-- they being several and the head one.” The second degree of virtue consists in receiving baptism; the third in abstaining from fornication; the fourth in controlling greed; the fifth in shunning gluttony; the sixth in doing penance; the seventh in perseverance in good works; the eighth in generaour care of strangers; the ninth in seeking the will of God and doing it willingly; the tenth in seeking out what God does not want us to do and not doing it; the eleventh in love of friends and enemies; the twelfth in watchful care to observe all of this. And when the apostle had finished his preaching, he baptized nine thousand men, not to mention the women and children.
pg. 33

the_red_shoes

In The Land of Fools

Once upon a time there was a man who strayed form his own country into the world known as the Land of Fools.

He soon saw a number of people flying in terror from a field where they had been trying to reap wheat. "There is a monster in that field," they told him. He looked, and saw that it was a watermelon.

He offered to kill the "monster" for them. When he had cut the melon from its stalk, he took a slice and began to eat it. The people became even more terrified of him than they had been of the melon. They drove him away with pitchforks, crying, "He will kill us, next, unless we get rid of him."

It so happened that at another time another man also wandered into the Land of Fools, and the same thing started to happen to him. But instead of offering to help them with the "monster", he agreed with them that it must be dangerous, and by tiptoeing away from it with them he gained their confidence. He spent a long time with them, in their houses, until he could teach them, little by little, the basic facts which would enable them not only to lose their fears of melons, but even to cultivate the fruit themselves.
pg. 131

Forgive me, your Reverence, for wandering from my subject, and do not be surprised, for I am following my own purpose. The writing seems to take control of my soul; and it is very often quite hard to break off my praise of God, when the great debt that I owe Him springs to my mind as I write. I do not think that this will displease you, Father, for I believe we can both sing the same song, though in a different way.
Pgs. 102-103

Therefore we should not bewail our loss. Rather we should lament the fact that our consolation is still unknown to us, that comfort cannot comfort us.
pg. 68

You tell me "she goes on". But my heart and body are crying out, come back, come back. Be a circle, touching my circle on the plane of Nature. But I know this is impossible. I know that the thing I want is exactly the thing I can never get. The old life, the jokes, the drinks, the arguments, the lovemaking, the tiny heartbreaking commonplace. On any view whatever, to say "H. is dead", is to say "All that is gone". It is a part of the past. And the past is the part and that is what time means, and time itself is one more name for death and Heaven itself is a state where "the former things have passed away".

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.